


The Eye of the Hurricane

by Bipolar_Armitage_Hux



Series: Caged by Monsters [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Agender Hux, Anorexic Hux, Autistic, Autistic Hux, Autistic Kylo Ren, Bipolar Kylo, Bulimic Hux, Bulimic Kylo, By which I mean ACTUAL psychosis not being used as an ableist modifier, Comfort/Angst, DDNOS Hux, DDNOS Kylo, Eating Disorders, Eventual Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren, Fluff and Angst, Gaslighting, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Intersex Hux, M/M, PTSD Hux, PTSD Kylo, Psychotic Hux, Selective Mutism Hux, Trans Man Kylo Ren, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:02:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8436040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bipolar_Armitage_Hux/pseuds/Bipolar_Armitage_Hux
Summary: An introduction to the psychiatric ward AU - this is written by an actually neurodivergent person and thus there is a strong attempt to make it not remotely ableist. The "bad guys" in this are the abusive doctors and an ableist system. Hux meets Kylo Ren for the first time, or rather the other sees him in a therapy session with Dr. Brendol Hux and becomes fascinated by him.





	

Kylo had slipped into the corridor in the early afternoon – timing it just right. Everyone was either in a group session, a solo-therapy session or in their rooms and it was _empty_. The sterile white corridors and silence calmed him, it felt tranquil as he wandered up and down like he wasn't in a hospital. He almost felt like he was floating above, ethereal and watching everything from afar – which he did actually wish he was. Occasionally he'd hear a nurse walk past and he'd hide in a alcove or a room. It wasn't that he _couldn't_ walk around the corridors but rather that he was supposed to be in a group therapy session – not that anyone really cared. They would more than likely just use it as an excuse to have him restrained again. He ran his fingers against the cool, white walls, enjoying the smooth feeling against the tips of his fingers. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the quiet, not on the bleach smell that burned his throat.  
  
He walked around the corner and heard shouting from a therapy room, he was about to turn around when he noticed something through the window in the door. It wasn't the patient shouting, it was a large man with light, silver-lined ginger hair shouting at a boy who looked a little similar to him around Kylo's age. The younger man looked terrified and his bright blue eyes, staring at the floor as he played with the strings of his hooded sweatshirt. He was a little pretty Kylo supposed – he was slight with fluffy hair and a soft complexion, for a moment he thought the young man might be like him. Kylo walked towards the room slowly, looking through the window and got a little closer to the two of them. He saw the younger man more clearly – his legs were long and he looked like he might be quite tall but he seemed to recoil in on himself as if he was trying to make himself smaller. Kylo also noticed his stomach was swollen, which looked odd against his thin frame. Hux had clearly tried to hide his body underneath a far too big, grey hooded sweatshirt but it was still a little obvious. They force feed him too, Kylo thought with a sad smile. The man started shouting again, and this time it was a lot clearer to the young man outside the door.  
  
“- I don't believe you. You're deliberately pushing me away when I'm trying to help you. Then you have all of these delusions and nightmares, you can't be trusted to do anything alone, can you?” The older man shouted, Kylo's eyes fixated on the younger man, he didn't move and his only reaction was the winces every time the older man shouted. The boy spoke for the first time but it was so quiet Kylo couldn't here, he just heard the older man's response of “you're sorry? You're clearly not sorry enough. You had a perfectly normal childhood and if you just took your medication-” suddenly the boy interrupted, to both Kylo's and the older man's shock. The man stood up and began pacing up and down the room before he shouted again. “It looks like I'm going to have to have the nurses for them down your throat then. I'm your _doctor_ I know what's good for you, Armitage.” Kylo saw the young man's wince as his name was said... He, he really is like me, the tall, dark-haired boy outside of the door thought.  
  
The young man looked at the door as if he was desperate to try and run to it, then he looked up and saw two curious, wounded brown eyes staring back at him. The red-haired boy smiled at him – a forced, sad expression that didn't reach his eyes. Kylo, upon being seen, forced a smile back and walked away from the door, running back to the recreation room as soon as he was out of ear shot of the room. You'd think, he thought, as he returned without being caught by anyone, being stuck in this place I'd have already seen someone who looks that sad and lonely. But he hadn't, the young man was easily the most mournful person Kylo had ever seen. A very pretty mournful person though, he thought, maybe he might be interesting. He hoped the boy hadn't thought he was running from him... He did smile back, right?  
  
After leaving the therapy room, Hux's doctor – and his father - marched him to the door as his empty eyes stared at the floor barely listening to what the man was saying. The session had gone the way it always does, Hux tried to talk about himself only to be shouted down. At least father let me write things down this time, Hux thought. He had actually managed to speak at the end, a little. He knew he should be grateful that his father was helping him considering everything that he had done to the man. Hux had delusions and nightmares of his father doing despicable things to him, which had hurt his father. The man insisted on Hux telling him about every one and then convincing him that none of it was real but... It felt real. The young man hated himself for it but he couldn't _stop_. He was doing all this to his father, the man who was trying to help him. Hux always seemed to push him away with his delusions and by not taking his medication, it wasn't his fault exactly. And it wasn't that he wasn't taking his medication. They force fed him afterwards so it would work, then Hux would purge which would cause the pills to come back up. It wasn't his fault his father's treatment didn't feel like it was actually helping him – it just seemed to be mostly telling Hux he was lying, him losing his grasp on reality more by the day, and being in a constant numb, sedated state. Fuck, shut up, Hux, he thought to himself, the man cares and is trying to help you. He repeated that to himself for a while, until suddenly his father stopped outside of Hux's room and turned to him.  
  
“Well, here we are, boy,” his father said in a bored voice. Hux stood in front of him looking at the floor with his hands in his pockets. “Armitage, can you at least bloody look at me when I'm talking to you?” Hux looked up and stared at the man who was about an inch shorter than him but the young man's recoiled stature made him feel much taller. He flinched when his father made him make eye contact, the older man grabbed the boy's arm and Hux recoiled from, making a short sharp whining sound and attempted to pull away. Suddenly he felt his father's hand make sharp quick contact with his face and his eyes started stinging. His vision went blurry and tears started to run down his face as his cheek burned. “You can't even let your father touch you? You make up these things that I did to you and you won't even let me show you any kind of affection? What did I do to deserve a disgusting thing like you for a progeny?” His father spat at his crestfallen son who had returned to staring at the floor with tears. “What are you going to get all worked up and cry now? You're a child, Armitage.” With that the man turned away and walked back to his office, Hux opened the door to his room, where he started to sob for real. He leant on the closed door, allowed himself to fall down to the floor and sat there crying for a while, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth.  
  
“I don't mean to be a monster,” Hux muttered to himself over and over again. He really didn't, he didn't know how to get better or why he hurt his father so much. He just wanted everything to stop, even if his father didn't believe a word he said.  
  
A few hours later, Hux found himself in the recreation room – purely because a nurse had come in and said he should. As soon as he walked in he saw the boy he saw through the window in the corner – the boy who smiled at him. Hux didn't know what gave him the courage to do this but he walked over to him and sat on the blue armchair next to the dark-haired boy's. The other looked up and smiled awkwardly, his pupils dilated and he'd obviously been sedated – but so had Hux. The red-haired boy sat down after returning the young man's smile.  
  
“You're Armitage, right? I'm Kylo. Kylo Ren,” Kylo said awkwardly, his voice hoarse. He instantly felt stupid for introducing himself that way, especially when Hux didn't respond. He blushed and looked away, then he realised that the other was trying to show him a notepad he'd been carrying with him under his arm.  
  
“Yes but I prefer Hux,” Hux wrote in his neat but shaky handwriting.  
  
“Sorry, Hux,” Kylo smiled. Hux nodded and gulped returning back to his notepad as the other looked at him curiously.  
  
“Sorry, I don't like talking” was written underneath Hux's first response.  
  
“We are talking, just not in the traditional sense,” Kylo replied with a smile. Hux stared at him, blinking a little too much whilst his cheeks turned a light shade of pink. He curled back over his notepad.  
  
“Thank you.” He showed Kylo who nodded in response before returning back to the pad. “I saw you looking in on my therapy session. Why did you do that?” The other shrugged.  
  
“I caught a glimpse of you through the window, you looked sad,” he admitted, sounding a little pathetic.  
  
“Did you hear anything?” Hux wrote, with a panicked look in his bright blue eyes.  
  
“I heard him shouting at you, he-” Kylo was interrupted by a jab in his leg with the notebook.  
  
“He's my father, he's the only one who can help me, it's my fault he got angry.” The words looked up at Kylo, hitting him in the stomach as they did. He'd seen enough to recognise a manipulated abuse victim when he saw one, but he wasn't sure how to react.  
  
“If he works in this shithole,” Kylo began bitterly. “He can't help you.” He stopped for a moment, then decided to share in the other's misery a little. “Your stomach, it was bulging oddly in the session. They force fed you, they do that to me.”  
  
“Y-yes,” Hux said, taking Kylo by surprise by actually speaking. “I-I barely eat otherwise – I usually try and purge afterwards but I can't always.” Hux's voice was soft and hoarse, he stammered a little. Kylo smiled.  
  
“You don't have to speak if you-”  
  
“I want to,” Hux interrupted. “I'm not- I talk sometimes. It's- I have phases. I guess.”  
  
“I try and purge too sometimes,” Kylo responded. “But it's too hard, I usually end up falling asleep.” Hux nodded understanding, he picked up his notepad again.  
  
“Did you get into trouble? Walking through the corridors? I hope you didn't.” Kylo shrugged in repsonse.  
  
“I'm always in trouble.” Hux gave him a strange look then returned to scrawling his response.  
  
“Can we go somewhere else? I'm only here because the nurse made me and I don't like being around everyone.”  
  
“Yeah sure, uh,” Kylo paused, terrified that what he was about to say was a little too forward. “We- you could always come hang out in my room. We could listen to music or something?” Hux just nodded in response, following Kylo furtively out of the room, standing close to him and freezing when anyone else got too close. It was strange, Hux couldn't remember what it was like having a friend. He was sure he _had_ one – he just couldn't remember what that was like. Anything that happened before he came to the hospital was a little blurry, his father filled in the blanks and then his nightmares contradicted that. Hux tried not to think about it as he walked into Kylo's room. It didn't matter – he had a _friend_.

 


End file.
